10 



NEW WORKS ON BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, &c. 



A great improvement in the covering with mats, both for the frame and the 

 pit, is to have wire or iron rods upon the sashes, so as to keep the mats at least 

 four inches above the glass. One mat at that distance will keep out cold more 

 effectually than four laid upon the surface of the glass. The pit, from having the 

 walls hollow, will not require any litter around the walls in the winter, and con- 

 sequently will be more neat in appearance than a frame. A pit of the above 

 description will do equally well for Camellias, and for all hard-wooded New 

 Holland plants. 



NOTICES OF NEW WORKS ON BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, &c. 



We congratulate our botanical readers upon the appearance of the " sixth 

 volume of De Candolle's Prodromus," a work upon which the learned and 

 indefatigable author has been engaged for many years. The importance of the 

 present and preceding volume, and the anxiety with which they had long been 

 expected by the botanical world, will no doubt justify us in offering the following 

 brief remarks. Of all the various orders into which the vegetable kingdom has 

 been divided, one of the most natural, and at the same time the most extensive, 

 is the composite. Indeed the immense number of species which it contains has 

 rendered its subdivision into sections not only desirable but absolutely necessary, 

 This has been attempted by many distinguished botanists, but more especially by 

 Cassini, Kunth, and in this country by Dr. Brown, in an admirable paper in the 

 twelfth volume of the " Transactions of the Linnean Society." Yet, notwith- 

 standing the attention which has formerly been bestowed upon it by the botanists 

 above named, and more recently by Lessing, in his excellent Synopsis, still the 

 arrangement of the composite has been considered to be far from satisfactory, and 

 the genera and synonyms in a state of great confusion up to the present time. 

 To review the whole order, and to extricate it from difficulties so embarrassing, 

 was apparently reserved for the master-mind of De Candolle, and most ably has 

 he executed the task. In short, we feel assured that the fifth and sixth volumes 

 of his Prodromus (which are devoted almost entirely to the composite) cannot 

 fail to be regarded as models of patient labour, philosophical investigation, and 

 accurate discrimination. 



Mr. Bateman announces a second number of his splendid work on the 

 " Orchidacese of Mexico and Guatemala," to appear in the course of the present 

 month. 



Dr. Lindley also announces a second number of his splendid " Sertum Or- 

 chidaceum," to be published in April. 



